The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ES­CTT) has launched the African Her­itage Agri­cul­tur­al Cen­tre (AFRHA), aimed at em­pow­er­ing youth through cli­mate-smart agri­cul­tur­al train­ing and life skills de­vel­op­ment. The ini­tia­tive tar­gets ur­ban out-of-school youth aged 16-24 from East Port of Spain com­mu­ni­ties.

“This project em­pow­ers young peo­ple to trans­form their lives and com­mu­ni­ties us­ing ad­vanced agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices," said Dr Asha Kam­bon, ES­CTT Lead for AFRHA.

First Cit­i­zens Group has pledged three years of part­ner­ship, with Deputy CEO Neela Mooni­lal-Kissoon com­mend­ing ES­CTT’s ef­forts to ad­dress en­vi­ron­men­tal and so­cial chal­lenges. The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the UN Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion are al­so col­lab­o­rat­ing.

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son urged pri­vate sec­tor sup­port, stat­ing, "To­geth­er, we can un­lock the vast tal­ent with­in our youth.” AFRHA aligns with the UN's Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals and aims to re­duce re­liance on food im­ports while fos­ter­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic growth.